The Second Time Around (5 page)

I picked up the receiver, touched number one, and the automatic dial did its job. Robert answered. Of course he was terribly worried about Lynn, and I was happy to be able to reassure him that she really would be fine and out of the hospital in a few days.

Allowing for the fact that he'd been concerned about his daughter, I still felt that something else was wrong. Then he came out with it. “Carley, you met Nick. I can't believe he was a fraud. My God, he talked me into putting almost all my savings in Gen-stone. He wouldn't have done that to his wife's father if he knew it was a scam, would he?”

*   *   *

At the interview the next morning, I sat across the desk from Will Kirby, my heart sinking when he said, “I understand you're Lynn Spencer's stepsister.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I saw you on the news last night outside the hospital. Frankly, I was worried that it might be impossible for you to do the assignment I had in mind, but Sam tells me you're not very close to her.”

“No, I'm not. Frankly, I was surprised that she wanted me to go up to see her yesterday. But she did have a reason. She wants people to understand that whatever Nick Spencer did, she had no part in it.”

I told him that Nick had persuaded Lynn's father to put most of his savings in Gen-stone.

“He'd have to be a real skunk to deliberately cheat his own father-in-law,” Kirby agreed.

Then he told me that the job was mine and my first assignment was to do an in-depth profile on Nicholas Spencer. I had submitted samples of the profiles I'd done previously, and he liked them. “You'll be part of a team. Don Carter will handle the business angle. Ken Page is our medical expert. You'll do the personal background. Then the three of you will put the story together,” he told me. “Don is setting up appointments at Gen-stone with the chairman and a couple of the directors. You should go along on them.”

There were a couple of copies of my column on Kirby's desk. He pointed to them. “By the way, I don't see any conflict if you want to keep writing the column. Now go introduce yourself to Carter and Dr. Page, and then stop by Personnel to fill out the usual forms.”

Interview over, he reached for the phone, but as I got up from the chair, he smiled briefly. “Glad to have you with us, Carley,” he said, then added, “Plan to drive to wherever in Connecticut Spencer came from. I liked the job you did on your sample profiles, getting hometown people to talk about your subject.”

“It's Caspien,” I said, “a little town near Bridgeport.” I thought of the stories I'd read about Nick Spencer working side by side with his doctor father in the lab in their home. I hoped that when I got to Caspien I'd at least be able to confirm that that was
true. And then I wondered why I simply couldn't believe that he was dead.

The answer wasn't hard to figure out. Lynn had seemed more concerned about her own image than about Nicholas Spencer because she was not a grieving widow. Either she knew he wasn't dead, or she didn't give a damn that he was. I intended to find out which was true.

I
could tell that I would enjoy working with Ken Page and Don Carter. Ken is a big dark-haired guy with a bulldog chin. I met him first and was beginning to wonder if the men at
Wall Street Weekly
had to satisfy a minimum height and weight requirement. But then Don Carter arrived; he's a small, neat package of a man with light brown hair and intense hazel eyes. I judged both of them to be around forty.

I had barely said hello to Ken when he excused himself and ran out to catch Carter whom he spotted passing in the hallway. I took the moment to get a good look at the degrees on the wall and was impressed. Ken is a medical doctor and also has a doctorate in molecular biology.

He came back with Don behind him. They had confirmed appointments at Gen-stone for eleven o'clock the next day. The meeting would be in Pleasantville,
which was the main headquarters for the company.

“They have plush offices in the Chrysler Building,” Don told me, “but the real work gets done in Pleasantville.”

We would be seeing Charles Wallingford, the chairman of the board of directors, and Dr. Milo Celtavini, the research scientist in charge of the Gen-stone laboratory. Since both Ken and Don lived in Westchester County, we decided that I'd drive up and meet them there.

Bless Sam Michaelson. Obviously he had talked me up. There's no question that when you work on a top-priority team project, you want to be sure you can function smoothly as a unit. Thanks to Sam I had the feeling that there wouldn't be much of a “wait and see” for me with these guys. In essence I was getting another “welcome aboard.”

*   *   *

As soon as I left the building, I called Sam on my cell phone and invited him and his wife to a celebratory dinner at Il Mulino in the Village. Then I hurried home, planning to make a sandwich and a cup of tea and have lunch at the computer. I'd received a new stack of questions from readers of the column and needed to sort them out. When you get mail for a column like mine, questions tend to be repetitious. That means, of course, that a lot of people are interested in the same thing, which is an indication of which questions I should try to answer.

Occasionally I'll make up my own inquiries when I
want my readers to have specific information. It's important that people who are financially inexperienced be kept up to date on such subjects as refinancing mortgages when the rates are rock-bottom low, or avoiding the snare of some “interest-free” loans.

When I do that, I use the initials of my friends in the query letters and make the city one where they have a connection. My best friend is Gwen Harkins. Her father was raised in Idaho. Last week the lead question in my column was about what to consider before applying for a reverse mortgage. I signed the inquiry from G.H. of Boise, Idaho.

Arriving home, I realized I'd have to put aside plans to work on the column for a while. There was a message on the answering machine from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Jason Knowles, an investigator, urgently needed to talk to me. He left his number and I returned the call.

I spent the next forty minutes wondering what information I might have that would be useful for an investigator from the attorney general's office to have immediately. Then, when the buzzer from the vestibule sounded, I picked up the intercom phone, confirmed it was Mr. Knowles, warned him to take the staircase, and released the lock.

A few minutes later he was at my door, a silverhaired man with a manner that was both courteous and direct. I invited him in and he sat on the couch. I chose the straight-backed chair opposite the couch and waited for him to speak.

He thanked me for seeing him on such short notice,
then got down to business: “Ms. DeCarlo, you were at the Gen-stone stockholders' meeting on Monday.”

It was a statement, not a question. I nodded.

“We understand that many people who attended that meeting expressed strong resentment toward management and that one man in particular was enraged by the statement made by Lynn Spencer.”

“That's true.” I was sure the next verification would be that I was Lynn's stepsister. I was wrong.

“We understand that you were in the end seat of a row reserved for media and that you were next to the man who shouted at Mrs. Spencer.”

“That's right.”

“We also understand that you spoke to a number of disgruntled stockholders after the meeting and took down their names.”

“Yes, I did.”

“By any chance did the man who talked about losing his house because of investing in Gen-stone talk to you?”

“No, he did not.”

“Do you have the names of the stockholders who talked to you?”

“Yes, I do.” I felt that Jason Knowles was waiting for an explanation. “As you may or may not know, I write a financial advice column that is directed to the unsophisticated consumer or investor. I also do occasional freelance articles for magazines. At that meeting it occurred to me that I might want to do an in-depth article illustrating the way the collapse of Gen-stone has destroyed the future of so many little investors.”

“I do know that, and that's why I'm here. We'd like to have the names of the people who spoke to you.”

I looked at him. It appeared to be a reasonable request, but I guess I had every journalist's instant reaction about being asked to reveal sources.

It was as though Jason Knowles could read my mind. “Ms. DeCarlo, I'm sure you can understand why I'm making that request. Your sister, Lynn Spencer—”

I interrupted him: “Stepsister.”

He nodded. “Stepsister. Your stepsister could have been killed when her home burned down the other night. We have no idea at this point whether the person who set the fire knew she was in the house. But it also seems reasonable that one of those angry—and even financially desperate—stockholders might have set it.”

“You do realize that there are hundreds of other people, both stockholders and employees, who might have been responsible for setting the fire?” I pointed out.

“We are aware of that. By any chance did you get the name of the man who had the outburst?”

“No.” I thought of how that poor guy had gone from anger to hopeless tears. “He didn't set the fire. I'm sure of it.”

Jason Knowles's eyebrows raised. “You're sure he didn't set it. Why?”

I realized how stupid it would be to say, “I just know he didn't.” Instead I said, “That man was desperate, but in a different way. He's heartbroken with worry. He
said his daughter is dying and he's going to lose his home.”

It was obvious that Jason Knowles was disappointed when I couldn't identify the man who was so upset at the meeting, but he wasn't through with me. “You
do
have the names of the people who spoke to you, Ms. DeCarlo?”

I hesitated.

“Ms. DeCarlo, I saw your interview at the hospital. You very properly condemned as evil or psychotic anyone who would set fire to a home.”

He was right. I agreed to give him the names and phone numbers I had jotted down at the meeting.

Again he seemed to read my mind. “Ms. DeCarlo, when we call these people, we intend to simply tell them that we are speaking to everyone who attended the stockholders' meeting, which I assure you is true. Many of those present had returned the postcard sent by the company indicating that they planned to be there. Anyone who returned that card will be visited. The problem is that not everyone who attended bothered to return the card.”

“I see.”

“How did you find your stepsister, Ms. DeCarlo?”

I hoped my moment of hesitation did not register on this quietly observant man. “You saw the interview,” I said. “I found Lynn in pain and bewildered by all that has happened. She told me she had no idea that her husband was doing anything illegal. She swears that to the best of her knowledge, he was absolutely
committed to the belief that Gen-stone's vaccine was a miracle drug.”

“Does she think the plane crash was staged?” Jason Knowles shot the question at me.

“Absolutely not.” And now, as I echoed Lynn, I wondered if I sounded either convinced or convincing. “She insists she wants and needs to learn the absolute truth.”

A
t eleven o'clock the next morning I drove into the visitors' parking lot of Gen-stone in Pleasantville, New York. Pleasantville is a lovely Westchester town that was put on the map years ago when
Reader's Digest
opened its international headquarters there.

Gen-stone is about half a mile from the
Digest
property. It was another beautiful April day. As I walked along the path to the building, a line from a poem I loved as a child ran through my head: “Oh, to be in England now that April's there.” The name of the famous poet simply wouldn't jump into my mind. I figured I'd probably wake up at three in the morning and there it would be.